What is an experiment? In quite simple words, "you do something and see
what happens." The critical element is that you manipulate the putative
causal variable ("you do something") rather than just passively observe.
This does not, IMHO, necessarily involve random assignment of experimental
units to conditions -- if it did, all research involving only
within-subjects comparisons would be considered nonexperimental.
When a chemist experiments, does she randomly assign experimental units
to conditions? No, she achieves control by other means. She does
manipulate variables of interest and then observes what happens following
such manipulations.
Karl W.
Quoting Bill Scott <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
> I just today asked a student to change the word "experiment" in her paper
to
> the word "study" because she simply asked different groups to respond to
> questionnaires. Around here, I reserve the label "experiment" to mean a
> study that randomly assigns participants to conditions. However I wonder
if
> I am not with it in the way we scientists think these days. I was looking
at
> NASA research and found that they seem to call any scientific activity an
> experiment.
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